


Eyes I Dare Not Meet In Dreams

by astaria51 (winged)



Category: Bandom, My Chemical Romance, The Sandman, Vertigo (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Apocalypse, Community: wtf27, Crack, F/M, Gen, Prompt Fic, RPF, RPS - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-05-12
Updated: 2006-05-12
Packaged: 2017-10-28 00:43:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/301874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winged/pseuds/astaria51
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the end of the world, and Gerard sees a familiar face.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Eyes I Dare Not Meet In Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> The one and only fic I wrote for the wtf27 challenge, filling prompt 8: Apocalypse Now.
> 
> The fact that Death/Gerard is a pre-existing tag thrills me! Though really not that surprising come to think of it.
> 
> I marked it as both Gen and F/M since the Death/Gerard requires a little squinting.

_He knows who she is. That year, the bad one, he saw her everywhere: through blurred vision across the open fields and parking lots; in the second or third rows of packed venues and waiting outside the bus afterwards; wandering down busy sidewalks._

 _He knew who she was then, too, maybe with more ease than he does now._

 _She'd been more formal then, in a dress that reminded him of some 80's prom gown gone goth and tulle. Sometimes she wore big black boots; sometimes she carried a parasol._

 _He'd been terrified of her, and entranced. Every day he put on makeup feeling more as if he faked something. Every day he tried to convince himself that if he drank a little more, took something else, the swish of fabric and the curl of a smile would disappear from view (or reappear, maybe)._

 _The night he called Brian, she was sitting outside the window._

 

It's been raining for days, weeks maybe, the kind of rain that sits in your bones and leeches hope. The kind of rain that makes everything but mold give up on anything but plastic and buckets.

The kind of rain that makes you feel like it's raining everywhere. Only it's not. There was an earthquake in India last week, a volcano is spewing ash and gas in the south Pacific, and South America is having post-rain mudslides. Somewhere around 30 tornadoes ripped through the midwest the other day along with deadly hail; and in some weather pattern freak show, California and Oregon are having wildfires.

Gerard wishes he could be the kind of ignorant that complains 'what is this? Seattle?' about the nor'easters that have been passing through his area of the country. Instead, whatever deity is up there chooses to laugh at him by making him intimately familiar with most of the United States -not to mention half a dozen other countries- in the form of diners and concert venues. If those things even still exist there.

Half the states in the US are in a state of emergency with little to no help from a crippled FEMA; meanwhile in the music industry, there's a noticeable discomfort with the lack of anything to do about it. Even benefit concerts are largely limited by the destruction. Some bands have started up matching funds through charity merch sales and local concerts, but otherwise everything's come to a stand still.

 

 _He's never seen her like this, though, casually dressed and sideways in a stuffed chair with her ankles crossed on the arm._

 _He ignores that she's somehow in his hotel room and tries desperately to assess the matter at hand. Tries to ignore the urge to throw up, to scream, to ask a million questions._

 _Instead, he nods his head and says, "My lady?" The words come unbidden, as if he's always known these sort of titles and the occasions in which to use them._

 _She laughs, bell-like, and swings out of the chair, crossing the distance to him in two strides. "Oh, please, none of that," she says. "It's my day off." She reaches a hand forward and tilts his head up with black-nailed fingers, looks at him with concerned eyes. "You don't smile enough," she informs him._

 

There's a rumor that there are going to be storm surges up and down the east coast this weekend, and Gerard anxiously glues himself to the set. His parents are far enough away from ocean to be safe. However, he's pretty sure Mikey wouldn't notice if the sky was raining fire, serpents and man-eating locusts, as long as he had his girlfriend, his kitten, and his internet access.

Mikey argues that Brooklyn is also pretty damn far away from the sea.

"Fuck no," Gerard says on the cell, through crackly reception and with CNN in the background. "Have you ever even _seen_ Deep Impact?"

"Gerard," Mikey says pragmatically, "This is a thunderstorm, not the aftereffects of an asteroid collision."

"Don't you want to make sure Mom and Dad are okay?"

"You're like a Jewish grandmother." Alicia's talking to him in the background. He mutters something at her affectionately and says, "Look; it's been forever since you came to visit. Come up and we'll come back with you, okay?"

"Fine."

 

 _"I don't think I understand," he tells her._

 _"Do you want to take a walk?"_

 _And so it is that they're walking along the pseudo-deserted streets of New York, toward Washington Square Park. "I get one day off a year," she explains, "To do what I want and spend with who I will."_

 _"And you chose me?"_

 _"Well, it's 5 in the afternoon," she says practically. "I gave you a couple of hours." She grins widely. "I have to admit, kid, you did take up a lot of my time for someone I never took home."_

 _He blushes unnecessarily, then grins at the oddity of the whole situation, not to mention the strangeness of this tiny young woman calling him 'kid' and meaning it._

 _"Yeah. About that..."_

 _"Don't worry," she dismisses, as the first drops of rain begin to fall. She puts up her rounded umbrella and pulls him under it by his waist. She settles her arm around the small of his back. "It's not the first time."_

 _They get to the park, and she sits down. "I like this place," she says with an odd sadness, and watches the pigeons flutter to safety in the trees._

 _"Yeah," he agrees, then looks at her. "You know something."_

 _"I know many things." She turns to him. "Babe, if I tell you something, do you promise to not to be too upset?"_

 

Maybe it's a side effect of being in New York, but aside from the people watching TVs in store windows, the inclement weather is being taken in stride. The only thing changed is the creepy lack of presence on the subways and streets. Pedestrian traffic has dwindled to a minimum; even the homeless seem to have disappeared to some other place.

Gerard finds a hotel so as not to bother his brother more than is really necessary (not to mention avoid running into the frequently noisy friends of Alicia's who he likes but has nothing at all in common with) and checks in.

That's when he sees her.

 

 _In the end, he takes it better than he would have expected,  
but it's not like he would have expected it._

 _"So this is how the world ends," he murmurs, not really thinking about it, or anything at all, and she pulls him close under the shade of the umbrella and kisses the top of his head._

 _"Eliot was full of shit, love," she tells him, "what with stuffed men and sightless eyes, but if you want to find someone to grope on a beach, I can let you go now."_

 _He watches the twilight diffuse into rainbows through a rainy sky and shakes his head. "No."_

 _"No one to celebrate with?"_

 _"I'm seeing my brother tomorrow," he says, "but I think I'm okay, for now."_


End file.
